| Abstract | Modern curation requires digitisation in order to preserve the specimens by reducing the amount of handling and to mobilise and make the data available efficiently. iCollections has digitised 125,000 British Lepidoptera, 15,000 British flowering plants, 8,000 Psyllids and 12,000 beetles in nearly 18 months, and it is, among other projects, piloting the mass digitisation of all collection at the NHM. iCollections aims to mobilise and disseminate through biodiversity informatics portals the data associated with the specimens, and to assign a unique identifier to each specimen. Small natural history collections contribute to increase scientific knowledge applicable to societal needs and interests in the same way as large collections do. In order to test the work flow and pipelines involved, collections of different size of particular interest to NHM researchers have been used; these comprised a variety of specimens on pins, slides,and herbarium sheets. Having achieved a balanced compromise between the need of speed and cost-effectiveness, the work flow adaptation to small collections is proposed and possible solutions for achieving a robust data management system are suggested
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